8 ms·

No Place for Transphobia in Anthropology: Session Pulled from Annual Meeting

68 points by mikrotikker 3y ago

SenAnder 3y ago
For more context, the response from the canceled speakers: https://elizabethweiss74.wordpress.com/discussing-sex-is-no-longer-allowed-at-anthropology-conferences/ https://elizabethweiss74.wordpress.com/discussing-sex-is-no-... They claim the accusation that "it assumes the truth of the proposition that it sets out to prove, namely, that sex and gender are simplistically binary" is false - one of their abstracts even makes explicit distinction between sex and gender [1]. While technically even biological sex is not entirely binary, it is, in the vast majority of cases, binary enough to support categorization of human remains as male or female. Perhaps these points would have been made in their talk, however, it was shut down without notice to its presenters, despite having earlier gotten approval for it. [1] In “No bones about it: skeletons are binary; people may not be”, Elizabeth Weiss wrote: “In forensics, however, anthropologists should be (and are) working on ways to ensure that skeletal finds are identified by both biological sex and their gender identity, which is essential due to the current rise in transitioning individuals.”
- throwaway81523 3y ago
  I had thought not even skeletons were binary. US revolutionary war general Casimir Pulaski seems to have left behind a non-binary skeleton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski#Exhumation_and_analysis_of_remains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski#Exhumation_and... A later study funded by the Smithsonian Institution, the results of which were released in 2019, concluded from the mitochondrial DNA of his grandniece, known injuries, and physical characteristics, that the skeleton was likely Pulaski's.[57] The skeleton has a number of typically female features, which has led to the hypothesis that Pulaski may have been female or intersex.[58][59][60] A documentary based on the Smithsonian study suggests that Pulaski's hypothesized intersex condition could have been caused by congenital adrenal hyperplasia, where a fetus with female chromosomes is exposed to a high level of testosterone in utero and develops partially male genitals. This analysis was based on the skeleton's female pelvis, facial structure and jaw angle, in combination with the fact that Pulaski identified as and lived as male.[55][61]
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    Human hermaphrodites/intersex people have definitely existed throughout history [1][2]. They are very rare, modern estimates put them at somewhere around 0.02%–0.05% of all births. So for any random skeleton it's probably safe to assume it isn't intersex, but analyze enough and you will find a couple that are. Just the normal variation of humans is also an issue. For almost any characteristic, the bell curve of typical male features overlaps with the bell curve of typical female features. There are some anatomical features that are very distinct like the shape of the pelvis, but if you don't have a complete skeleton you might mistake a tall strong woman for a man or the other way around. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite#Use_regarding_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite#Use_regarding_hu... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex#History
    - fanf2 3y ago
      The shape of the pelvis depends more on whether it has been through childbirth than on the sex of its owner.
    - cherry_tree 3y ago
      Any source for 0.02-0.05% ? I’ve heard various numbers
      - wongarsu 3y ago
        Wikipedia, which quotes it from a paper from 2017 [1], which in turn takes the number from a paper from 2007. Though taking a quick peek at some papers on specific forms of intersex, it seems like there are both large uncertainties in the actual numbers (about a factor of 2) and large regional differences (a specific form of intersex being an order of magnitude more common in one country than in another seems to be common). Though maybe that's just down to the available data. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5866176/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5866176/
  - SenAnder 3y ago
    To re-state: "in the vast majority of cases, binary enough" Yes, there are always exceptions. Some people have six fingers or two heads. That is not license to pretend that, given a human skeleton, we cannot make any inferences about their... role in the human reproductive cycle and society, to avoid the contentious terms of "sex" and "gender". That's like saying we can't tell if a coin will land heads 50% of the time, because sometimes we get 10 heads in a row.
- mplewis 3y ago
  Elizabeth Weiss is already known for being insensitive at best, so I would take her interpretation of the situation with a heavy grain of salt.
  - bellown 3y ago
    Elizabeth Weiss has ruffled feathers because she's spoken out against the rampant and ingrained misogyny in her field. In particular, some museum curators have accommodated demands by indigenous tribes, usually from men, that female curators aren't permitted to handle their objects. So in the name of cultural respect, you have this outright sexism being endorsed instead. Here's an example, from her Twitter, of how menstruating women were being discriminated against by her university's curation protocols; thankfully she got this overturned by getting lawyers involved: > The @SJSU protocol for handling Native American remains used to state “Menstruating personnel will not be permitted to handle ancestors”. This sexist rule has been deleted, after @PacificLegal and I pointed out that it may be illegal. An important victory! #NAGPRA #anthrotwitter - https://twitter.com/eweissunburied/status/1514373633065422851 https://twitter.com/eweissunburied/status/151437363306542285... This might be considered an insensitive reaction by some, but only if you elevate the desires of misogynist men above all else.
    - Ensorceled 3y ago
      You can be a both an ardent feminist and "gender-critical" to the point of being a transphobe, they overlap quite often, to my constant surprise.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  From the response: > UK anthropologist Kathleen Richardson’s abstract highlighted issues surrounding material disparities between the sexes in the tech industry that are being erased by counting men who identify as trans as women rather than by having more women enter the field. > Francophone Canadian anthropologist Michèle Sirois was to offer an ethnographic account of the ways “in which Quebec feminists have organized to document, clarify and oppose the exploitative surrogacy industry that hides under the guise of 'equity' and 'inclusion'”, and in which surrogacy policies which exploit poor women are cynically framed as liberatory. This session was going to be a "terf" train wreck and a massive distraction for the conference.
  - bellown 3y ago
    Both of those talks sound well worth attending. It's unfortunate that the anthropologists who blocked this session are so averse to having their own dominant culture critically examined.
    - benterix 3y ago
      There is a reason why they don't want to have it examined.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    > This session was going to be a "terf" train wreck Yeah that's how they win. 'You will accept our religion or we will trainwreck your conference by mobilising a million zealots to call you names.' You don't want them to win because they're not people who are operating on logic, they're operating on faith. That's not conducive to an orderly world.
silenced_trope 3y ago
This is the death of anthropology. > The session was rejected because it relied on assumptions that run contrary to the settled science in our discipline I don't think it's settled science. You can cross different borders on our planet and have different anthropologic organizations that come to different conclusions dependent on what borders you're inside of.
- hwillis 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    I think you are missing the GP’s point. Or here, the American organization we’re discussing might be compararable to your fringe deniers of evolution. My background is in an adjacent field of the humanities to anthropology, but I am in Europe. Our professional orgs and conferences over here generally show none of that obsessive focus on trans issues, taboos, and claims that some presentation would be “harm” or “violence” to “vulnerable people”. That is viewed as a distinctly North American circus, which has made a few inroads elsewhere, especially in the Anglosphere, but has thankfully spared most of the rest of the scholarly world so far.
- none_to_remain 3y ago
  This is not a matter for science, it's a matter of religion
  - troupe 3y ago
    The talk was specifically saying that despite some very rare mutations, humans have binary sex in the sense that they are XX or XY, so the categorization of skeletons as male and female is a reasonable scientific classification as far as sex is concerned. How is that not a matter for science?
    - 15457345234 3y ago
Pxtl 3y ago
[flagged]
Dig1t 3y ago
>The first ethical principle in AAA’s Principles of Professional Responsibility is to “Do no harm.” The session was rejected because it relied on assumptions that run contrary to the settled science in our discipline, framed in ways that do harm to vulnerable members of our community. This notion of equating words with physical violence is so confusing to me. Where did it come from and why is it so popular?
- xcdzvyn 3y ago
  Harm can mean a lot of things. I doubt the AAA intended "do no harm" to mean "don't run into the crowd and start swinging on people".
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I'm not sure where it originated, but you have to admit that it's a very effective way to silence people.
- i_am_jl 3y ago
  I don't think "harm" here refers to physical damage. "Don't physically injure others" would be a weird thing to include in a code of conduct for professional anthropologists.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- olivermuty 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    > If you spend ten years trapped in your own body, only to be met with «aaccshtually there are only two genders» all around I think your assumption that non-binary people are uniformly 'trapped in their own body' is quite mistaken. They simply inhabit an unexplored, mysterious, liminal space between the two majority genders. If anything, this would give them an elite, quasi-shamanic status according to traditional «binary» culture, not drive them towards social exclusion.
wongarsu 3y ago
I'm confused. The announcement speaks as if sex estimation makes any assumption about the gender of the person? Now I'm no native speaker, but isn't the entire point of having two words in English that you can make factual anatomical statements about sex, while gender is a thing that can vary from sex and is "historically and geographically contextual, deeply entangled, and dynamically mutable" as the statement puts it? How is a statement about biological sex in any way a statement about gender?
- hwillis 3y ago
  It sounds like the speaker was trying to argue against the usage of sex estimation. As you say, sex estimation seems like a good and working solution.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  Read the statement from one of the members of the withdrawn session that is posted in another response. It clears things up.
- Simulacra 3y ago
  It undermines the narrative that biological sex can be changed. A skeleton is either genetically XX or XY. That's all that can be determined because that's all there is.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  > the entire point of having two words in English that you can make factual anatomical statements The zealots opposing this are opposed to the concepts of facts and words and communication
  - Simulacra 3y ago
    Trust the science, except when it comes to biological sex.
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      [flagged]
Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 3y ago
Can I just strike something home here...: A talk at a scientific conference, attended by adult scientists, was pulled, and one of the reasons given was "in order to ensure the safety and dignity of all of our members". A __talk__ at a __scientific conference__, attended by __adult scientists__, was __pulled__, and one of the reasons given was "in order to __ensure the safety and dignity__ of all our members". Disagree with the talk, don't attend, but apparently adult scientists need to be protected from listening to speech now... Fragile little buggers... (or one hell of a violent talk...)
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 3y ago
    Don't personally see it as much of an insult or overly harsh to be honest. Qualifying as an "insult" are another category of terms to me, but obviously subjective.
  - mikrotikker 3y ago
    Mockery is excellent way to attack authoritarians
- hwillis 3y ago
  Its intentional language. Lawyerspeak, if you like. Not all talks at a conference are serious; some are humorous, some are meta-commentary on problems in the field, etc. If you say you are cancelling the talk because it's not scientific or not relevant to the field, the aggrieved party can complain about those other talks. In reality it was cancelled for all of the above reasons, but the one that is most inarguable is that they are not being hostile to a minority that attends the conference.
TheMagicHorsey 3y ago
If you had a set of 1000 cards, where 495 have color 0x00000000 +- x and 495 have color 0xFFFFFFFF +- x and a further 10 have color Rand(0x00000000, 0xFFFFFFFF) and you had to categorize these, if x is very small, you would probably end up with three sets ... 0, F, and some R, where the 0 set would get everything that is 0x00000000 or close to it, F set would be 0xFFFFFFFF and everything close to that, and then some R which is in the space outside those sets. But if the vast majority of samples are in 0 and F, then it makes sense to have these as categories to study, without invalidating the fact that there is another set R which defies clean placement into either. But pretending like 0 and F aren't categories, but rather everything is a smooth linear continuum seems silly too if x is small.
- Pabloski80 3y ago
  That feels certainly right on both points. Another point of contention that perhaps shall be left out for later discussion (i might have got some preconditioned view, but perhaps would like to hear others first) is whether the third category should be considered "equal" to the 0 and F.
kdmccormick 3y ago
In full anticipation that HN will jump to the defense of the canceled speakers, here's a quote from the canceled speakers' response (emphasis mine): > UK anthropologist Kathleen Richardson’s abstract highlighted issues surrounding material disparities between the sexes in the tech industry that are being erased by counting men who identify as trans as women rather than by having more women enter the field. The assumption here is that trans women are actually just "men who identify as trans." If that's the attitude that these scholars have, it's no wonder their paper was flagged as transphobic.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  Yeah, this is one of those decisions where the aggrieved party's defence makes me feel it was the right decision.
- bellown 3y ago
  She's not wrong though, is she. Having 'male women' in the demographic doesn't make the field any less male-dominated. Unfortunately, it's common on HN for commenters here to see things primarily from a male viewpoint, and assume that female-centred perspectives are less valuable or less intelligent or even bigoted in some way. Please do keep an open mind when listening to women share their experiences and perspectives.
  - jadamson 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - kdmccormick 3y ago
    My view, and AFAICT the view of most academic organizations in the US at this point, is that there is no such thing as a "male woman". A trans woman is female, a trans man is male. Trying to separate gender from "biological sex" trivializes the reality of trans people. Even if you don't care about that, it's just not very correct: intersex people exist; chromosomes don't always line up with assigned-at-birth gender; and transitioning can involve physical changes that you might consider changing someone's "biological sex". For situations where one's birth-assigned gender is relevant, the terms "assigned male/female at birth" (AMAB/AFAB) can be used. The researcher's claim about tech diversity could have been framed as, e.g., "a recent uptick in tech diversity can be ascribed to counting trans women by their self-identified gender rather than the gender they were assigned at birth". That comes across as much more sensitive and academic than "men identifying as trans", which just has TERF written all over it.
the_third_wave 3y ago
No place for science in anthropology or when ideology overrides objectivity. Anthropology is among the fields which are the hardest hit by the incursion of ideologues who have replaced the scientific method with post-truth dogmatism.
Pabloski80 3y ago
Science around that tiny area is profoundly broken. This event is just another instance of evidence of this sad fact.
minerva23 3y ago
It's disappointing to see so many TERF voices here. Transmisogynists tend to also be regular misogynists. I hate to think about how all the folks here with hateful/bigoted comments are either current or potential future coworkers.
- graplp 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > “Transmisogyny” doesn’t really make sense as a concept It makes perfect sense and you are demonstrating it. > If these trans-identifying males are perceived as women, they’re not experiencing transmisia. If perceived as men, they’re not experiencing misogyny. “Transmisogyny” is not “transmisia (or, to use the more common term, transphobia) + misogyny” it is bigotry against trans women (using the term inaccurate term “trans-identify male” for the group is a pretty clear manifestation of transmisogyny). It often co-occurs with transmisia/transphobia and/or misogyny, but can exist independently of either, in the same way that misogynoir usually exists in the context of anti-black racism and/or misogyny, but can manifest independently without racism againt blacks more generally, or gender-based bigotry against women more generally.) Intersectional bigotry is not only the sum of multiple bigotries against the overlapping groups (though that's definitely one place it comes from), it is its own distinct thing which can exist with or without that. This is why the post you are responding to says "transmisogynists tend to be regular misogynists" and not "transmisogynists categorically are regular misogynists". > In reality this wouldn’t be misogyny anyway. The key part of the word is “gyn”, which is of Greek origin The wrongness of your primary point has been argued sufficiently in various other subthreads, even if they aren’t directly in response to your post, so I’ll just note that you are conflating etymology with definition, either out of ignorance yourself or out of hope that your audiences ignorance will allow you to sound erudite by pontificating in this manner. > Also, what “transmisogyny” typically means in practice is people calling out these males for being creepy Yes, calling a broad identity group creepy does tend to be a characteristic behavior of people engaging in bigotry against that group.
gnuphobia 3y ago
A note to anyone wondering why there are so many flagged comments in this post: Drew DeVault has a thread on Mastodon where he's invited people to reply with links to posts and comments here that they believe are examples of HN's users and moderators "censoring progressive voices or discussions, or tolerating hate". This post was linked from one of the replies, https://fosstodon.org/@adrienne@treehouse.systems/111172669375088484 https://fosstodon.org/@adrienne@treehouse.systems/1111726693..., and is likely being brigaded by readers of that thread, who are also posting judgemental opinions such as: > holy fuck that thread is shockingly vile, and I’ve seen a lot of vile shit on the orange site And: > looks like the item got flagkilled off the front page, so at least it's not getting much new traffic, but the comments are an absolute cesspool Seems that they would prefer people with views that dissent from their own to be censored, rather than to engage in open discussion.

68 points by mikrotikker 3y ago

For more context, the response from the canceled speakers: https://elizabethweiss74.wordpress.com/discussing-sex-is-no-longer-allowed-at-anthropology-conferences/ https://elizabethweiss74.wordpress.com/discussing-sex-is-no-... They claim the accusation that "it assumes the truth of the proposition that it sets out to prove, namely, that sex and gender are simplistically binary" is false - one of their abstracts even makes explicit distinction between sex and gender [1]. While technically even biological sex is not entirely binary, it is, in the vast majority of cases, binary enough to support categorization of human remains as male or female. Perhaps these points would have been made in their talk, however, it was shut down without notice to its presenters, despite having earlier gotten approval for it. [1] In “No bones about it: skeletons are binary; people may not be”, Elizabeth Weiss wrote: “In forensics, however, anthropologists should be (and are) working on ways to ensure that skeletal finds are identified by both biological sex and their gender identity, which is essential due to the current rise in transitioning individuals.”

throwaway81523 3y ago
I had thought not even skeletons were binary. US revolutionary war general Casimir Pulaski seems to have left behind a non-binary skeleton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski#Exhumation_and_analysis_of_remains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski#Exhumation_and... A later study funded by the Smithsonian Institution, the results of which were released in 2019, concluded from the mitochondrial DNA of his grandniece, known injuries, and physical characteristics, that the skeleton was likely Pulaski's.[57] The skeleton has a number of typically female features, which has led to the hypothesis that Pulaski may have been female or intersex.[58][59][60] A documentary based on the Smithsonian study suggests that Pulaski's hypothesized intersex condition could have been caused by congenital adrenal hyperplasia, where a fetus with female chromosomes is exposed to a high level of testosterone in utero and develops partially male genitals. This analysis was based on the skeleton's female pelvis, facial structure and jaw angle, in combination with the fact that Pulaski identified as and lived as male.[55][61]
- wongarsu 3y ago
  Human hermaphrodites/intersex people have definitely existed throughout history [1][2]. They are very rare, modern estimates put them at somewhere around 0.02%–0.05% of all births. So for any random skeleton it's probably safe to assume it isn't intersex, but analyze enough and you will find a couple that are. Just the normal variation of humans is also an issue. For almost any characteristic, the bell curve of typical male features overlaps with the bell curve of typical female features. There are some anatomical features that are very distinct like the shape of the pelvis, but if you don't have a complete skeleton you might mistake a tall strong woman for a man or the other way around. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite#Use_regarding_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite#Use_regarding_hu... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex#History
  - fanf2 3y ago
    The shape of the pelvis depends more on whether it has been through childbirth than on the sex of its owner.
  - cherry_tree 3y ago
    Any source for 0.02-0.05% ? I’ve heard various numbers
    - wongarsu 3y ago
      Wikipedia, which quotes it from a paper from 2017 [1], which in turn takes the number from a paper from 2007. Though taking a quick peek at some papers on specific forms of intersex, it seems like there are both large uncertainties in the actual numbers (about a factor of 2) and large regional differences (a specific form of intersex being an order of magnitude more common in one country than in another seems to be common). Though maybe that's just down to the available data. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5866176/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5866176/
- SenAnder 3y ago
  To re-state: "in the vast majority of cases, binary enough" Yes, there are always exceptions. Some people have six fingers or two heads. That is not license to pretend that, given a human skeleton, we cannot make any inferences about their... role in the human reproductive cycle and society, to avoid the contentious terms of "sex" and "gender". That's like saying we can't tell if a coin will land heads 50% of the time, because sometimes we get 10 heads in a row.
mplewis 3y ago
Elizabeth Weiss is already known for being insensitive at best, so I would take her interpretation of the situation with a heavy grain of salt.
- bellown 3y ago
  Elizabeth Weiss has ruffled feathers because she's spoken out against the rampant and ingrained misogyny in her field. In particular, some museum curators have accommodated demands by indigenous tribes, usually from men, that female curators aren't permitted to handle their objects. So in the name of cultural respect, you have this outright sexism being endorsed instead. Here's an example, from her Twitter, of how menstruating women were being discriminated against by her university's curation protocols; thankfully she got this overturned by getting lawyers involved: > The @SJSU protocol for handling Native American remains used to state “Menstruating personnel will not be permitted to handle ancestors”. This sexist rule has been deleted, after @PacificLegal and I pointed out that it may be illegal. An important victory! #NAGPRA #anthrotwitter - https://twitter.com/eweissunburied/status/1514373633065422851 https://twitter.com/eweissunburied/status/151437363306542285... This might be considered an insensitive reaction by some, but only if you elevate the desires of misogynist men above all else.
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    You can be a both an ardent feminist and "gender-critical" to the point of being a transphobe, they overlap quite often, to my constant surprise.
Ensorceled 3y ago
From the response: > UK anthropologist Kathleen Richardson’s abstract highlighted issues surrounding material disparities between the sexes in the tech industry that are being erased by counting men who identify as trans as women rather than by having more women enter the field. > Francophone Canadian anthropologist Michèle Sirois was to offer an ethnographic account of the ways “in which Quebec feminists have organized to document, clarify and oppose the exploitative surrogacy industry that hides under the guise of 'equity' and 'inclusion'”, and in which surrogacy policies which exploit poor women are cynically framed as liberatory. This session was going to be a "terf" train wreck and a massive distraction for the conference.
- bellown 3y ago
  Both of those talks sound well worth attending. It's unfortunate that the anthropologists who blocked this session are so averse to having their own dominant culture critically examined.
  - benterix 3y ago
    There is a reason why they don't want to have it examined.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  > This session was going to be a "terf" train wreck Yeah that's how they win. 'You will accept our religion or we will trainwreck your conference by mobilising a million zealots to call you names.' You don't want them to win because they're not people who are operating on logic, they're operating on faith. That's not conducive to an orderly world.

silenced_trope 3y ago

This is the death of anthropology. > The session was rejected because it relied on assumptions that run contrary to the settled science in our discipline I don't think it's settled science. You can cross different borders on our planet and have different anthropologic organizations that come to different conclusions dependent on what borders you're inside of.

hwillis 3y ago
[flagged]
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  I think you are missing the GP’s point. Or here, the American organization we’re discussing might be compararable to your fringe deniers of evolution. My background is in an adjacent field of the humanities to anthropology, but I am in Europe. Our professional orgs and conferences over here generally show none of that obsessive focus on trans issues, taboos, and claims that some presentation would be “harm” or “violence” to “vulnerable people”. That is viewed as a distinctly North American circus, which has made a few inroads elsewhere, especially in the Anglosphere, but has thankfully spared most of the rest of the scholarly world so far.
none_to_remain 3y ago
This is not a matter for science, it's a matter of religion
- troupe 3y ago
  The talk was specifically saying that despite some very rare mutations, humans have binary sex in the sense that they are XX or XY, so the categorization of skeletons as male and female is a reasonable scientific classification as far as sex is concerned. How is that not a matter for science?
  - 15457345234 3y ago

Pxtl 3y ago

[flagged]

Dig1t 3y ago

>The first ethical principle in AAA’s Principles of Professional Responsibility is to “Do no harm.” The session was rejected because it relied on assumptions that run contrary to the settled science in our discipline, framed in ways that do harm to vulnerable members of our community. This notion of equating words with physical violence is so confusing to me. Where did it come from and why is it so popular?

xcdzvyn 3y ago
Harm can mean a lot of things. I doubt the AAA intended "do no harm" to mean "don't run into the crowd and start swinging on people".
EA-3167 3y ago
I'm not sure where it originated, but you have to admit that it's a very effective way to silence people.
i_am_jl 3y ago
I don't think "harm" here refers to physical damage. "Don't physically injure others" would be a weird thing to include in a code of conduct for professional anthropologists.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
olivermuty 3y ago
[flagged]
- zozbot234 3y ago
  > If you spend ten years trapped in your own body, only to be met with «aaccshtually there are only two genders» all around I think your assumption that non-binary people are uniformly 'trapped in their own body' is quite mistaken. They simply inhabit an unexplored, mysterious, liminal space between the two majority genders. If anything, this would give them an elite, quasi-shamanic status according to traditional «binary» culture, not drive them towards social exclusion.

wongarsu 3y ago

I'm confused. The announcement speaks as if sex estimation makes any assumption about the gender of the person? Now I'm no native speaker, but isn't the entire point of having two words in English that you can make factual anatomical statements about sex, while gender is a thing that can vary from sex and is "historically and geographically contextual, deeply entangled, and dynamically mutable" as the statement puts it? How is a statement about biological sex in any way a statement about gender?

hwillis 3y ago
It sounds like the speaker was trying to argue against the usage of sex estimation. As you say, sex estimation seems like a good and working solution.
Ensorceled 3y ago
Read the statement from one of the members of the withdrawn session that is posted in another response. It clears things up.
Simulacra 3y ago
It undermines the narrative that biological sex can be changed. A skeleton is either genetically XX or XY. That's all that can be determined because that's all there is.
15457345234 3y ago
> the entire point of having two words in English that you can make factual anatomical statements The zealots opposing this are opposed to the concepts of facts and words and communication
- Simulacra 3y ago
  Trust the science, except when it comes to biological sex.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    [flagged]

Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 3y ago

Can I just strike something home here...: A talk at a scientific conference, attended by adult scientists, was pulled, and one of the reasons given was "in order to ensure the safety and dignity of all of our members". A __talk__ at a __scientific conference__, attended by __adult scientists__, was __pulled__, and one of the reasons given was "in order to __ensure the safety and dignity__ of all our members". Disagree with the talk, don't attend, but apparently adult scientists need to be protected from listening to speech now... Fragile little buggers... (or one hell of a violent talk...)

Ensorceled 3y ago
[flagged]
- Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 3y ago
  Don't personally see it as much of an insult or overly harsh to be honest. Qualifying as an "insult" are another category of terms to me, but obviously subjective.
- mikrotikker 3y ago
  Mockery is excellent way to attack authoritarians
hwillis 3y ago
Its intentional language. Lawyerspeak, if you like. Not all talks at a conference are serious; some are humorous, some are meta-commentary on problems in the field, etc. If you say you are cancelling the talk because it's not scientific or not relevant to the field, the aggrieved party can complain about those other talks. In reality it was cancelled for all of the above reasons, but the one that is most inarguable is that they are not being hostile to a minority that attends the conference.

TheMagicHorsey 3y ago

If you had a set of 1000 cards, where 495 have color 0x00000000 +- x and 495 have color 0xFFFFFFFF +- x and a further 10 have color Rand(0x00000000, 0xFFFFFFFF) and you had to categorize these, if x is very small, you would probably end up with three sets ... 0, F, and some R, where the 0 set would get everything that is 0x00000000 or close to it, F set would be 0xFFFFFFFF and everything close to that, and then some R which is in the space outside those sets. But if the vast majority of samples are in 0 and F, then it makes sense to have these as categories to study, without invalidating the fact that there is another set R which defies clean placement into either. But pretending like 0 and F aren't categories, but rather everything is a smooth linear continuum seems silly too if x is small.

Pabloski80 3y ago
That feels certainly right on both points. Another point of contention that perhaps shall be left out for later discussion (i might have got some preconditioned view, but perhaps would like to hear others first) is whether the third category should be considered "equal" to the 0 and F.

kdmccormick 3y ago

In full anticipation that HN will jump to the defense of the canceled speakers, here's a quote from the canceled speakers' response (emphasis mine): > UK anthropologist Kathleen Richardson’s abstract highlighted issues surrounding material disparities between the sexes in the tech industry that are being erased by counting men who identify as trans as women rather than by having more women enter the field. The assumption here is that trans women are actually just "men who identify as trans." If that's the attitude that these scholars have, it's no wonder their paper was flagged as transphobic.

Ensorceled 3y ago
Yeah, this is one of those decisions where the aggrieved party's defence makes me feel it was the right decision.
bellown 3y ago
She's not wrong though, is she. Having 'male women' in the demographic doesn't make the field any less male-dominated. Unfortunately, it's common on HN for commenters here to see things primarily from a male viewpoint, and assume that female-centred perspectives are less valuable or less intelligent or even bigoted in some way. Please do keep an open mind when listening to women share their experiences and perspectives.
- jadamson 3y ago
  [flagged]
- kdmccormick 3y ago
  My view, and AFAICT the view of most academic organizations in the US at this point, is that there is no such thing as a "male woman". A trans woman is female, a trans man is male. Trying to separate gender from "biological sex" trivializes the reality of trans people. Even if you don't care about that, it's just not very correct: intersex people exist; chromosomes don't always line up with assigned-at-birth gender; and transitioning can involve physical changes that you might consider changing someone's "biological sex". For situations where one's birth-assigned gender is relevant, the terms "assigned male/female at birth" (AMAB/AFAB) can be used. The researcher's claim about tech diversity could have been framed as, e.g., "a recent uptick in tech diversity can be ascribed to counting trans women by their self-identified gender rather than the gender they were assigned at birth". That comes across as much more sensitive and academic than "men identifying as trans", which just has TERF written all over it.

the_third_wave 3y ago

No place for science in anthropology or when ideology overrides objectivity. Anthropology is among the fields which are the hardest hit by the incursion of ideologues who have replaced the scientific method with post-truth dogmatism.

Pabloski80 3y ago

Science around that tiny area is profoundly broken. This event is just another instance of evidence of this sad fact.

minerva23 3y ago

It's disappointing to see so many TERF voices here. Transmisogynists tend to also be regular misogynists. I hate to think about how all the folks here with hateful/bigoted comments are either current or potential future coworkers.

graplp 3y ago
[flagged]
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > “Transmisogyny” doesn’t really make sense as a concept It makes perfect sense and you are demonstrating it. > If these trans-identifying males are perceived as women, they’re not experiencing transmisia. If perceived as men, they’re not experiencing misogyny. “Transmisogyny” is not “transmisia (or, to use the more common term, transphobia) + misogyny” it is bigotry against trans women (using the term inaccurate term “trans-identify male” for the group is a pretty clear manifestation of transmisogyny). It often co-occurs with transmisia/transphobia and/or misogyny, but can exist independently of either, in the same way that misogynoir usually exists in the context of anti-black racism and/or misogyny, but can manifest independently without racism againt blacks more generally, or gender-based bigotry against women more generally.) Intersectional bigotry is not only the sum of multiple bigotries against the overlapping groups (though that's definitely one place it comes from), it is its own distinct thing which can exist with or without that. This is why the post you are responding to says "transmisogynists tend to be regular misogynists" and not "transmisogynists categorically are regular misogynists". > In reality this wouldn’t be misogyny anyway. The key part of the word is “gyn”, which is of Greek origin The wrongness of your primary point has been argued sufficiently in various other subthreads, even if they aren’t directly in response to your post, so I’ll just note that you are conflating etymology with definition, either out of ignorance yourself or out of hope that your audiences ignorance will allow you to sound erudite by pontificating in this manner. > Also, what “transmisogyny” typically means in practice is people calling out these males for being creepy Yes, calling a broad identity group creepy does tend to be a characteristic behavior of people engaging in bigotry against that group.

gnuphobia 3y ago

A note to anyone wondering why there are so many flagged comments in this post: Drew DeVault has a thread on Mastodon where he's invited people to reply with links to posts and comments here that they believe are examples of HN's users and moderators "censoring progressive voices or discussions, or tolerating hate". This post was linked from one of the replies, https://fosstodon.org/@adrienne@treehouse.systems/111172669375088484 https://fosstodon.org/@adrienne@treehouse.systems/1111726693..., and is likely being brigaded by readers of that thread, who are also posting judgemental opinions such as: > holy fuck that thread is shockingly vile, and I’ve seen a lot of vile shit on the orange site And: > looks like the item got flagkilled off the front page, so at least it's not getting much new traffic, but the comments are an absolute cesspool Seems that they would prefer people with views that dissent from their own to be censored, rather than to engage in open discussion.